


Where Sleeping Rabbits Lie

by Catzgirl



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Depending on Feedback, F/F, F/M, and how the story goes, as inanen fleshed out, idk what to tell you, relationships subject to change, she made some things very clear to me, so now i'm just rolling with it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-21 21:43:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9568031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catzgirl/pseuds/Catzgirl
Summary: Inanen'Fen of Clan Lavellan has been running for her entire life. Her self-identity shattered by the death of her twin, her destiny decided for her by her family, by her Keeper, and now by a demon-torn hole in the sky, she's angry and bitter to a fault and she won't apologize for it. Forced to join the Inquisition to clear her name and absolutely sure that without her leadership Thedas will ignore Corypheus and hope for the best, she finds a family where she least expects it and at the most inopportune time.





	1. Wolves and Roads

I n Dalish stories, one can always tell that a great evil is about to happen if the tale is set at night. This makes absolutely no sense to Inanen, as all of the great atrocities of her life have been committed in the light of day. So it’s with very little concern that she agrees to meet with Keeper Deshanna under the full of the moon a ways from camp after the rest of the clan has taken to the aravels. Deshanna requests that she bring her family with her, and although Inanen has been taught all her life that all of Clan Lavellan is her family, she does not have to ask to whom the Keeper refers. She murmurs in her mother’s ear the query and Fenmyelan, the follower of the wolf, nods once before going about her business.

They gather at the appropriate time- her mother, her father- Lenise,- her brother- Mahanon,- and her infant sister-Alnifena. Deshanna comes alone and bids them all to sit. “This,” she begins, “Has been long in the coming,” and Inanen can guess why they’ve been called.

People, Inanen has noticed, tend to wear masks often. Their masks look exactly like their faces, but frozen with emotion. An elder puts on a mask of strength when a dear one is laid to rest, a hunter wears of mask of calm when gravely injured, a herder wears a mask of indifference when slaying a halla. Deshanna now wears of mask that she doesn’t don often: it is cold and calculating and totally at odds with the usually warm and inviting Keeper. Inanen'fen-  the wolf’s eyes- misses very little, so she takes the hint in Deshanna’s eyes that speak to her unease.

“Fenmyelan,” the Keeper says, “When you came to us you were a young woman and you honored the traditions of your former clan. There were some, not many but some, that claimed your name to be blasphemous. I quelled them as superstitious, and we have lived relatively peacefully. However,” and now Deshanna looks pointedly at Inanen, “You have since named three daughters for Fen'Harel and dedicated their lives and deeds to him. You have also had the… fortune… to only bear mage children. My First and my Second are both your children, and there are many that feel this is unfair. The problems together have become overwhelming.” Her gaze returns to Fenmyelan and the Keeper pronounces, “Something must change. There is too much disquiet in the Clan. We must come to a solution, now.”

“You’ve already found one,” Inanen says, and her voice comes out more of a growl than she intended. It never ceases to frustrate her, people and their masks and their half-truths. Deshanna wears a mask of cold practicality, but it comes naturally to Inanen, and rarely does she curtail it for the sake of being polite.

“I have come to a temporary solution,” Deshanna corrects her, “What we must find now is something long-term.”

“Well,” Mahanon says, and it isn’t lost on Inanen how she and her brother will steer this conversation with little to no input from their parents, “Let’s hear your short term solution first. I am a Mage, and a male,” and he smiles, “I am therefore resigned to helping improve the dalish-mage population, as is our way. However, I’m not willing to break my mother’s ancestors’ tradition, and I will see any daughters I have named for Fen'Harel as my sisters have been. If this is unacceptable to you then we’ve got a lot to talk about before the night is through. Better to set aside the good news first,” and now he gives his most charming grin. Mahanon is a dark mahogany brown to her night-black skin, but they share the same fire red hair that marks their father’s lineage. He has bright green eyes that crease at the corners from too much laughter, and he is older than her by half a decade. Inanen, true to her name, has gold and red eyes that can see out the back of her head, or so she’s told, so she sees how her mother’s hand tightens on her father’s arm, and how Deshanna’s mask wavers for just a moment in the face of Mahanon’s thinly veiled warnings.

“The shem are warring, mages against Templars. You know this,” Deshanna says, and it’s true. They are her First and Second, and it is their business to know such things. “I have gotten word from the alienage in Wycome that the Divine will host a great meeting, a Conclave, to try to settle the war diplomatically. I would like someone to observe it, to ensure that if our trading relations are to be affected we will not be ignorant. I need-”

“You need a spy,” Inanen interrupts, flexing her bare feet and crossing her legs. “Someone that can travel safely across the Narrow Sea to this great meeting, without drawing undue attention. You need either Mahanon or me to do it to placate the clan while you find a way to overrule the naysayers. I offer my own solution.” She doesn’t bother to glance at her mother or father, just digs her teeth into the meat of the matter, “I propose that I send a letter of the Conclave results to Wycome, to be sent on to you. I propose that I do not return,” and now her father sharply inhales in alarm, “But that I continue on to the Dales. The Free Marches have little that holds my interest. I am not suitable to be Keeper. My place here causes nothing but discord, and many would be happy to see the back of me. This opens my spot as Second to one of the other young mages, and frees you of one blasphemous Wolf, at least.”

Deshanna’s eyes look pained, but her face remains frozen in indifference. “Yes,” she murmurs thoughtfully, “That could very well be the solution we need.”

“It is too much,” her mother starts but her father quells her with a look and says, “Deshanna. I have been part of this clan all of my life, as have my fathers’ fathers. We have lost one daughter already. I would not lose another.”

Inanen refrains from physically recoiling but lets her tongue loose, “Revasa is dead. There is little and less for me here. I will go to the Dales with or without the Keeper’s leave, but this way she seems to the clan to have ordered it. Some will think it too cruel, because of Revasa. It will do much to quell any further dissent about our family. I will go.” Her tone brooks no argument.

There is very little to say afterwards, and mostly only Deshanna and Inanen speak as they plan the logistics of getting her to the Temple of Sacred Ashes and then to the Dales. She will travel by ship, of course, and then hike her way into the mountain pass. She will attempt to infiltrate the temple so she can hear the arguments and decisions first hand. She will not, under any circumstances, reveal herself or interfere. There is a small village near to the temple called Haven, and Inanen will make her way there to write Deshanna a letter, before moving on to the Dales. Deshanna knows of a clan there- Hawen will welcome a mage, or will know of a clan that would. Mahanon peppers the conversation with jokes that their father frowns on, and Fenmyelan sits silently and nurses the daughter remaining to her and looks as if she would dearly love to wring the keeper’s neck. Afterwards, Deshanna left them to discuss things amongst themselves and Fenmyelan let both of her older children have it.

“We will leave,” she says, voice quiet with fury, “We will leave and start our own clan.”

Mahanon laughs and opens his arms wide. Mythal’s braches grace his brow, a shade darker than his eyes, and they crease with his smile, “The four of us and one small babe? We would perish! Inanen wanted to go anyways, you couldn’t have kept her here for much longer, mother.” He stands and stretches to his full height, then relaxes. Mahanon is always smiling, but Inanen can not remember a time that the laughter reached his eyes. “We all have our roles to play,” he says, now speaking down at their still seated parents, “Some of us hunt. Some of us tend to the halla. Some of us are First. Inanen will play our scapegoat and secure us all a happier life.” He laughs, hallow now, and follows Deshanna's path back to camp.

Inanen let the tense silence dwell for a moment, then looks her mother in the eyes. She has done worse things in her life than break her mother’s heart. “Mahanon is right. I’ve no desire to remain in the Free Marches, where Revasa’s ghost haunts me. I would have gone in the night,” she adds, cruel now, trying to make her understand, “Or at the next Arlathan. I would never have stayed."

Fenmyelan’s fury turns very quickly to tears, and Lenise wraps an arm around her, pulls she and the babe close. “You have our blessing, in this as in all things. I hope the path you walk brings you happiness.”

Inanen stares and does not speak.

Fenmyelan passes the baby to Lenise and stands, biding Inanen to do the same. Then, she embraces her daughter, and whispers, “You do not answer to me. You do not answer to me, or to any Keeper, or to the shem Divine. You answer to Fen'Harel, the only God that still walks this land, as do I and my mother and my mother’s mother. Make us proud.”

 

Inanen'fen of clan Lavellan left the next morning, with the intention of reaching Wycome well before nightfall. All of the clan woke with her to see her off, and she could tell immediately that this plan would work. Her mother sobbed and clutched the baby and many went to her with comforting embraces. Her father had said his goodbyes the night prior, and had taken to the fields with the halla, unwilling to watch her go. So it was Mahanon who finally saw her off, after the requisite hugs and blessings.

You wanted this , she wanted to scream at each sympathetic face, You thought my name would bring ill upon the clan. You thought it unfair that a named servant of Fen'Harel was your Second. You deceive yourselves, but I see you as you are , and felt more disgusted than she had expected. Finally, Mahanon clapped her on the back and loudly announced, “I’ll see you to the tree line!” She shouldered her pack and followed him away. She did not bother to glance back.

When they were well out of earshot, Mahanon broke into laughter. “Oh, their pitiful faces! ” and broke into snickers that had even her smiling.

“You’ll be next, you know,” she said, and did not mean it as biting as it came out. Mahanon took it in stride.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, “I doubt I’ll ever be allowed to leave, I’m far too valuable as breeding stock.”

He, too, had trouble keeping his wit from straying towards the truth. She hmmed in answer and they came to a halt at the tree line. It was mostly plains and swamp all the way to Wycome, but Inanen trusted herself to make good time. She turned to her brother, maybe for the last time, and smiled truly now. “I’m leaving,” she said.

“You’re leaving,” he agreed, and he wrapped her into a warm embrace. Her head tucked beneath his chin, as it had when they were children, and she breathed in a last long breath of a place that had never been home. She felt the need to say something meaningful, but what words could express this? They’d both been caged by their clan- by their heritage, by their vallaslin, by very little more than luck of birth.

She didn’t need words, in the end. She was marked for Sylaise over one eye, a dark blue that was almost swallowed by her dark skin, and it leant her gaze some weight that her naked face had never accomplished. She and her siblings all possessed a way of sharpening their gaze, an intensity of the eyes that had nothing to do with the muscles of their faces, that could speak volumes when needed. He read them and understood in the way only blood can.

A smile, this one genuine, and he shoved her away. “Go on. Away with you.” It was all the goodbye she needed.

Later she’d look back and laugh at herself. She could easily have wandered the Free Marches instead of following her designated path. Just as easily, she could have gone straight to the Dales and bypassed the Conclave completely.

Some fates can’t be avoided.


	2. Cabins and Quarrels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She growls, a sound that comes from deep in her throat, then shoulders past them towards the cabin in question. She can admit that it is getting dark. They’d been set upon by bandits once already, an affair over so quickly it seemed laughable. It’s best to make camp than to invite more trouble on the road, no matter the battle prowess involved. But to spend even one more night in the company of this ragtag bunch of misfits is almost intolerable.

She is hopelessly lost.

One could say that at least she isn’t lost _alone_ , and Inanen would knock their teeth in because being lost in the company of a loudmouth dwarf, a pretentious Seeker, and an absolutely infuriating flat-ear is not at all preferable to the solace of solitude. They’d set out for the Hinterlands a week after Inquisition forces and now they’re a day behind arrival. It enough to set her teeth on edge.

“I’m pretty sure we’ve passed this cabin before,” Varric quips with a level of amusement that, frankly, will be the death of him. “And by that I mean, ‘I marked this tree just in case we happened to pass it again and what do you know!’”

“Dusk is approaching,” Solas murmurs, wholly ignoring their companion, and Inanen promptly turns on her heel to look him in the eyes. He keeps a steady gaze as he requests, “Should we make camp for the night, Herald?”

_Herald._  Herald of Andraste, the shem cult-goddess, sent to humble them all with her rabbit ears and _dalish_  ways and save them from the hole in the sky. Her eyes must betray her mounting fury because Solas turns to Cassandra and repeats the question rather than forcing Inanen to respond.

“We will check with the inhabitants of the cabin,” Cassandra dictates, “They will give us permission to camp and could direct us out of this grove.”

Then her eyes flick expectantly to Inanen, because of course the dalish freak with the glowing hand must be the one to- to _debase_  herself.

She growls, a sound that comes from deep in her throat, then shoulders past them towards the cabin in question. She can admit that it is getting dark. They’d been set upon by bandits once already, an affair over so quickly it seemed laughable. It’s best to make camp than to invite more trouble on the road, no matter the battle prowess involved. But to spend even one more night in the company of this ragtag bunch of misfits is almost intolerable.

Still, she approaches the cabin. There are no lights in the windows, and that gives her pause for all of half a second before she pounds her fist on the door. It gives and creaks open on the first rap, but she doesn’t have time to wonder at it before she’s flung backwards. She lands on both feet, snarling and whirling her staff off her back, bladed tip pointing at Cassandra’s back even as Solas and Varric step into formation with her.

“What,” she growls, “Do you think you’re _doing_?”

She can hear the scowl in Cassandra’s voice, but the Seeker doesn’t deign to turn around as she says, “This isn’t right. Something about this place feels…” She makes a disgusted noise and shakes her head, “We should move on.”

Inanen visibly bristles and does not sheath her staff. “If it is _unoccupied_ _,_ we should _sleep in it,”_  she says, and is furious that she must explain such a thing. “It is shelter and we are done for the day.”

Staff still in hand, she shoulders past the Seeker.

The cabin is not as empty as first glance would suggest. There is a roaring fire in the hearth that she almost can’t believe she didn’t notice straightaway. There’s food on the table- a full spread: chicken, field greens, fresh bread. There are several cots laid out as if the cabin owner is expecting guests or refugees. It’s almost too good to be true.

She slings her staff around her back again and sits down for the meal.

Varric slips onto the bench beside her, chuckles, “Your paranoia is showing, Seeker,” digs into the chicken and murmurs a quiet, “Good work, Twigs,” to Inanen.

_Twigs._  It should burn through her, the way _rabbit_  would, but she’s too busy eating to feel annoyed. Instead she mutters ,”Well,” back and digs into the spread.

“This is _wrong_ ,” Cassandra insists, even as she seats herself at the table. “Where are the inhabitants? Why did they prepare so much food?”

Solas slips in beside her and sighs, “Must all compassion come from reason, Seeker? The dinner is. Let it be.”

Inanen does not comment, content for the first time since this entire debacle began so many weeks ago. Once her belly is satiated, she stretches her arms above her head with a huge yawn. The overwhelming desire to sleep rises over her- starts at her toes, which feel too heavy to walk to a cot; climbs up to her belly, full of good food; creeps into her lungs, which even into deep, relaxing breaths; and finally clouds her mind, causing her eyes to droop… slowly… closed…

“I’m telling you,” Cassandra is slurring, mouth half full of bread even as her chin begins to nod towards her breastplate, “Something about this cabin… is not right.”

Varric gives a groan, leans his head fully on the table and says, “Ah, leave it for the morning Seeker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scream at me on tumblr at  
> fenesvir.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> this felt very... bulky... to write, for some reason. There's something about origin stories that elude me. I hope that next year I'll have enough experience to rewrite this into something better, but there ya have it.
> 
> scream at me on tumblr at fenesvir.tumblr.com  
> I've posted a few other chapters of this here, so the first few are just being transferred. You can wait for them to make appearances here or use the tag "#inquisitor series" to get a headstart.


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